Basolateral amygdala stimulation does not recruit LTP at depotentiated synapses

Abstract

Hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP) is a long-lasting increase in synaptic efficacy considered to be the cellular basis of memory. LTP consists of an early, protein synthesis-independent phase (E-LTP) and a late phase that depends on protein synthesis (L-LTP). Application of a weak tetanus can induce E-LTP in the dentate gyrus (DG) which can be reinforced into L-LTP by direct stimulation of the basolateral amygdala (BLA) within 30 min before or after LTP induction (structural LTP-reinforcement). LTP can be depotentiated by low-frequency stimulation (LFS) to the same synaptic input if applied shortly after tetanization (<10 min). Here, we addressed the question of whether stimulation of the BLA is able to recover LTP at depotentiated synaptic inputs. We hypothesized that E-LTP can activate synaptic tags, which were then reset by depotentiation. Stimulation of the BLA thereafter could beneficially act on tag-reactivation as well as on the activation of the synthesis of plasticity-related proteins (PRPs), normally captured by the tags and thus transforming E-LTP into L-LTP. Our results show, that BLA-stimulation was not able to reactivate the resetting of tags by depotentiation in the DG of freely moving rats.